The Integrity News
Vol. XIII No. 15
ISSN 1081-2717
'objective risk management services"
September 9, 2004
Crimes and terrorist acts are committed by individuals.
You must make a serious effort to keep the individuals
who will commit those acts out of your operations.
It may be depressing to approach candidate selection
with the thought in mind that each one may have
something serious to hide. But, being on guard, at that
level of awareness, is what is required in today's world.
In a September 3, 2004 FOX News article entitled
"ID Verification, ID Protection, Key to U.S. Security"
the author points out that: The strength of an ID
Verification system is that a terrorist or criminal trying
to assume another person's identity simply cannot
know every detail about the person whose identity
they are trying to steal.
Your candidate may be an imposter, trying to pass
himself or herself off to you under a phony identity.
As the person performing the background checks, it
is your job to quiz the candidates on the details. You
must take the time, and have the will, to uncover and
clarify any inconsistencies in the information that you
have about a candidate. You are your company's
front line of defense.
In the same FOX News article, it is pointed out that
"Identity authentication is the single most important
possible measure to deny criminals or terrorists
access to property, bank accounts, the commercial
transportation infrastructure, and similar crucial
institutions of a modern state. This applies to both
foreign visitors and U.S. citizens."
The cover of the September, 2004 issue of Treasury
& Risk Management has the word "TERRORIZED"
across the picture of an armed terrorist. The sub-title
is: "U.S. companies need to rethink their vulnerability
to the myriad avenues terrorists might choose in their
quest to bring them down." In the article is the quote:
"All you need is one terrorist on the inside, and it can
implode a company."
If for some reason you don't think that your company
is important enough to attract criminals or terrorists,
then think about this: most important companies are
now realizing that "one of the biggest potential chinks
in their armor is their supply chain." Will you be able
to satisfy the security requirements of your big
customers ?
The FOX News article also points out that a modern
information-based system for confirming individual
identities is indispensable for any security effort.
"Some critics fear authenticating individual identities
will compromise privacy. In fact, the reverse is true.
Authenticating an individual identity is one of the most
important ways to assure privacy when technologies
to compromise that privacy are growing rapidly. Only
by authenticating individual identities can we effectively
protect the constitutional privacy rights of U.S. citizens,
and the ability of visitors to travel freely."
In a September 7, 2004 ABC News article entitled
"Mining Your Past", the author points out that more
and more companies are now doing deeper background
checks. True.
However, with privacy in mind, it is important to point
out that not all media articles are complete or correct.
In that ABC News article the author then goes on to
talk about the use of gigantic databases. The FCRA
says in Section 613(a) that a report about a candidate
that MAY result in an adverse action MUST contain
the SAME information as the original source contained
on the date of the report. That was put in the law to
protect the privacy of candidates.
Tragically, the large commercial databases contain
copies of court or driving records that were appended
to those databases many months, or years, ago. For
that reason, using stored data for an employment
decision that MAY result in an adverse action, by
definition, is not legal under the FCRA. It is illegal to
use stale data for employment purposes. Reports for
employment purposes that MAY result in an adverse
action must be freshly retrieved from the respective
sources.
You can quickly get more information about background
checking, the details of freshly retrieved reports, and an
overview of state-of-the-art HR automation technology,
including document imaging, by calling
The Integrity Center, Inc.
at (972) 484-6140.
Helping you with your Risk Management and HR Automation is what we do.
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